Adhesive medical fabrics, especially bandages, have been widely used to protect the wound from friction, bacteria, damage, or dirt for decades. Conventional adhesive bandages are typically packaged individually in a paper wrapper and placed in a box in a bundle. It is inconvenient and requires two hands to take the bandage out of the box, remove the paper wrapper and the backer paper so that the bandage may be applied. After applying the bandage, the paper wrapper and the backer paper must then be collected and discarded. The steps that are involved in applying a bandage are undesirable especially in urgent circumstances.
However, significant improvements over the conventional methods of applying bandages are still lacking, though an example of improvement has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,100,290 (the “'290 patent”), which is incorporated herein by reference. One of the problems with adhesive bandage dispensers as disclosed in the '290 patent is that a user still needs to utilize both hands to remove the backer of a bandage and then to apply the bandage to the skin. Further, the dispenser does not collect the backer of a dispensed bandage; thus, the user must collect and discard the backer on his/her own.
This document describes devices and methods that address some or all of the issues described above.